Eh, that is some revisionist history you have going on there. Check out the Blizzcon where MoP was announced, the Horde V Alliance conflict was talked about a great deal there. It's clear that the reason Blizzard were not forthcoming about Garrosh being the final villain not because they didn't have a final villain in mind and that that final villain wasn't Garrosh but because they wanted it to be a surprise. In the end we can only look at the facts; and your supposition that Y'Shaarj was to be the final villain and the Horde V Alliance aspect was a tacked on afterthought just doesn't add up. Hell, the CGI trailer for MoP which most certainly took longer to create than the space of time between Blizzcon and the trailer's release has the Horde V Alliance as a main focus.

Maybe I am mis-remembering a bit, I kinda feel like they had this concept for MoP as a way to introduce Pandaren, but they felt that they had to go 'MoP is Horde V Alliance' on the back of having had 3 expansion of almost zero Horde V Alliance (end game) conflict -> That led to the community asking about a big bad, because 3 expansions of Illidan/Kil'jaeden, Lich King, Deathwing -> So Blizz say 'Sha and stuff' -> Community are like "Who? What?" -> Blizz: "Surprise, it's actually Garrosh!"

That's why I feel like it's actually quite disjointed; that Y'Shaarj and Garrosh as the big bad feel very tacked on as a climax, rather than a solid Horde V Alliance plotline. Especially when you get to 5.3 and there just isn't a plot Alliance side anymore, and Horde side it turns in on itself.

Lets not forget that Tryus Blackhorn in Mount Hyjal hinted the return of the legion during Cata too!:

Redemption! You act as if there's an escape from the Burning Legion. So smug! As though your efforts a decade ago or in Outland have slowed the Legion a single iota! They will come, <race>. They will return. And I will be here to welcome them.

Lets not forget that Tryus Blackhorn in Mount Hyjal hinted the return of the legion during Cata too!:

Redemption! You act as if there's an escape from the Burning Legion. So smug! As though your efforts a decade ago or in Outland have slowed the Legion a single iota! They will come, <race>. They will return. And I will be here to welcome them.

Every demon, satyr, warlock, etc. ever has hinted at the return of the legion. Saying "THEY'RE COMING" doesn't make a difference. It's that the son of the former Earth Warden is able to sense it impending on us that it holds any merit.

A rising menace. This is a strange choice of words, "rising" implies we haven't met them before and not foreseen their coming. I have a feeling this might not be the Legion after all.

If you're going to teeter around words, try Wrathion's quote of "the horrors that are even now bearing down on our fragile home." Bearing down usually means "incoming," and when overlaid with green infernal rain... seems to smack of the legion to me.

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow

I am betting on The Legion showing back up for the next expansion. Hopefully this will also give them an excuse to redo the BC zones.

i don't see them redoing any more, and hopefully we go to xoroth and argus and some other planets out in the twisting nether and not back to outland. metzen did say at our last blizzcon that they want us to go to other planets at some point.

"Wrathion foresees a rising menace that not even the Horde and Alliance together may be strong enough to overcome. Like if you think Wrathion has Azeroth’s best interests at heart, Share if you think he’s hiding something. http://bit.ly/11Z9z0Z"

Wouldn't surprise me if we get information released before Blizzcon, as they wanted to speed up the expansion cycles.

Speculate here!

I'm just going to guess the rising of the Old God N'Zoth.

"Yes, I'm one of those GW2 fan boys who quit WoW and never even played GW1."[/IMG]

i don't see them redoing any more, and hopefully we go to xoroth and argus and some other planets out in the twisting nether and not back to outland. metzen did say at our last blizzcon that they want us to go to other planets at some point.

I don't expect them to redo the zones for 91-100 level content or whatever, but it would be nice since they re-did all the vanilla zones if BC areas got a face lift. I expect that they will have us level in new areas like you mentioned.

i don't see them redoing any more, and hopefully we go to xoroth and argus and some other planets out in the twisting nether and not back to outland. metzen did say at our last blizzcon that they want us to go to other planets at some point.

Like this idea. I could see them announcing expansion V as "this is truly the largest expansion we have put out, explore not one, but two planets." I am expecting then to go all out for V, lots of ppl will be pulled back in so there will -finally- be some big dynamic changes coming to break the now, stale cycle.

"Wrathion foresees a rising menace that not even the Horde and Alliance together may be strong enough to overcome. Like if you think Wrathion has Azeroth’s best interests at heart, Share if you think he’s hiding something. http://bit.ly/11Z9z0Z"

Wouldn't surprise me if we get information released before Blizzcon, as they wanted to speed up the expansion cycles.

Speculate here!

Pick up one of these 3 please:
- The return of the Titans;
- The return of Sargeras (since Sargeras is a Titan, it could be related to the one obove this);
- The return of the Legion (since the legion is under the orders of sargeras, and Sargeras is related to the Titans, it could be related to the 2 above this).

A full legion expansion is very much due. After Northrend, Azeroth being destroyed and now another continent, it makes sense as it would be a good way to break things up. It's not the best reason, I know, but when you look back and how much has happened on Azeroth, I think it's due to get away from there for a while.

Maybe I am mis-remembering a bit, I kinda feel like they had this concept for MoP as a way to introduce Pandaren, but they felt that they had to go 'MoP is Horde V Alliance' on the back of having had 3 expansion of almost zero Horde V Alliance (end game) conflict -> That led to the community asking about a big bad, because 3 expansions of Illidan/Kil'jaeden, Lich King, Deathwing -> So Blizz say 'Sha and stuff' -> Community are like "Who? What?" -> Blizz: "Surprise, it's actually Garrosh!"

That's why I feel like it's actually quite disjointed; that Y'Shaarj and Garrosh as the big bad feel very tacked on as a climax, rather than a solid Horde V Alliance plotline. Especially when you get to 5.3 and there just isn't a plot Alliance side anymore, and Horde side it turns in on itself.

They announced it was Garrosh long before 5.3 was in development. Hell, I'm pretty sure it was announced well before the expansion was released. I was disappointed when they made the announcement. I would have rather seen the players react as things developed rather than knowing how the book ended before starting Chapter 1.

Alliance has no plot because Blizzard doesn't care to write them. The Alliance plot is "wait until next expansion, it's going to be awesome."

A cross-planet talent system, where talents on one planet don't work well on the other, requiring a little more creative input from the player?

Originally Posted by jd812

i don't see them redoing any more, and hopefully we go to xoroth and argus and some other planets out in the twisting nether and not back to outland. metzen did say at our last blizzcon that they want us to go to other planets at some point.

It was pretty much speculation. This is the first time they have directly hinted at it I believe.

Pretty much every other quest for Wrathion is a direct hint...

He shows you a world map with a dark menace unknown...

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Jessicka

Maybe I am mis-remembering a bit, I kinda feel like they had this concept for MoP as a way to introduce Pandaren, but they felt that they had to go 'MoP is Horde V Alliance' on the back of having had 3 expansion of almost zero Horde V Alliance (end game) conflict -> That led to the community asking about a big bad, because 3 expansions of Illidan/Kil'jaeden, Lich King, Deathwing -> So Blizz say 'Sha and stuff' -> Community are like "Who? What?" -> Blizz: "Surprise, it's actually Garrosh!"

That's why I feel like it's actually quite disjointed; that Y'Shaarj and Garrosh as the big bad feel very tacked on as a climax, rather than a solid Horde V Alliance plotline. Especially when you get to 5.3 and there just isn't a plot Alliance side anymore, and Horde side it turns in on itself.

We knew it was Garrosh from the time of the expansion announcement onwards and not just because of the leak (they talked about it at Blizzcon).

5.0 through 5.2 are Horde vs Alliance.
5.3 through 5.4 are Horde/Alliance vs Sha of Pride/Garrosh/Y'Shaarj.

Not to mention we learned of Y'Shaarj and the Sha connection in 5.0.4.